Almost the only professors remaining in universities these days were those who had sworn allegiance to the Führer. The new rector of the University of Berlin, a storm trooper and veterinarian by trade, instituted courses in Racial Science. The new director of the Dresden Institute of Physics had proclaimed, ‘Modern physics is an instrument of World Jewry for the destruction of Nordic Science. True physics is the creation of the German spirit. In fact, all European science is the fruit of Aryan thought.’ Meanwhile Germany’s great thinkers, artists, scientists – Einstein, Thomas Mann, dozens of them, hundreds of them – were long gone, scattered to the four winds and erased from the pages of German culture.
‘And it didn’t stop there,’ said Benno.
‘We were at the theater,’ said Margarete. She didn’t want to talk about politics. ‘Kleist. The Broken Jug. Wonderful. We laughed and laughed.’ They stopped talking when the food arrived.
‘I’ll see what I can find out about the investigation,’ said Benno, taking up the topic of Lola’s attack again.
‘Don’t,’ said Willi. ‘I don’t think you’d find anything, and it’s not worth the risk. I may ask Bergemann to look into it, although …’ Hans Bergemann’s connection to Willi was necessarily more and more tenuous, and his access to information was more and more limited, so looking into it wouldn’t be easy for him either. The police were ruled by the SS now. A culture of suspicion prevailed. Just seeking information could signify treachery.
‘It’s like an infection, isn’t it?’ said Benno. ‘And not just at police headquarters. Suspicion is a virus that has infected the whole society. The very words we speak are dangerous. You have to think of all possible meanings before you say anything out loud. And you have to pay attention to how you look, where you look, how you stand or sit or pick up a mug of beer. Nothing is beyond suspicion.’
At that moment, as if to underscore Benno’s point, the door opened and a young couple came in and took a table by the front door. They cast a vague unfocused look in the Horvaths’ direction, then sat down and never looked their way again. And the Horvaths never looked in their direction either. They were strangers to one another, and the safest thing for everyone was to keep it that way.
Tullemannstraße 54
Deutsche Reichspost regulations required that all mail deliveries be placed inside locked mailboxes. No exceptions were allowed. And Trude Heinemann always delivered the mail in accordance with the Reichspost requirements. She could get in trouble if she didn’t.
A keyring hung from a long chain at her side. She drew it up, found the right key, opened the metal panel above the boxes, and slid the letters in. She had more than forty buildings on her route, with over five hundred and fifty individual mailboxes. So her work required efficiency and dispatch.
Heinz Schleiffer was the fly in the ointment. Heinz Schleiffer waited by the door of 54 Tullemannstraße each morning – outside when the weather was nice, inside when it wasn’t – for the mail to arrive. Heinz lived in the small apartment off the lobby of number 54, a brick and concrete block structure of five stories and of no discernible style. Most of the building’s thirty-six apartments were inhabited by working-class tenants. There were two staircases leading up from the lobby, with landings on each floor. Each landing had a porcelain sink for the use of the tenants. The landlords had promised to install running water in each apartment by year’s end, but there was no sign that they actually intended to do it. So a few tenants had run pipes and put in sinks at their own expense.
A highly polished metal sign with the word ‘Guardian’ was attached to Heinz’s front door. Heinz took his duties as guardian very seriously. ‘My job,’ he had said to Trude the first time she encountered him there, wearing the well pressed, if ill fitting, brown uniform of the SA. ‘My duty’ – he corrected himself – ‘is to a greater authority than the Reichspost.’
‘Heil Hitler,’ said Heinz, and saluted as Trude mounted the three steps to number 54.
‘Heil Hitler,’ she said. You were required to greet others that way. A few people said nothing or said ‘Heitler’ or something like that, something that sounded like Heil Hitler. But they were tempting fate. Trude’s teenage son Dieter had told her that he had once said ‘Ein Liter!’ (one liter) and given a snappy salute to the leader of the Hitler Youth at school. Trude was horrified. She shook her finger at him. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she said. ‘People end up in Dachau for less. You’re playing with fire.’
Dieter just laughed. ‘That idiot Herbert?’ he said. ‘He’s an asshole.’
Now Heinz, standing with his legs apart and his arms folded across his narrow chest, held out his hand. ‘Give it here,’ he said. He blocked her way every day now and had made it clear he would not budge until he inspected the mail. She handed him the small stack of letters for the building and waited while he leafed through them, making sure every letter belonged at 54.
‘There are more important things at stake than efficient postal delivery,’ he said.
That’s easy for you to say, thought Trude. You never get any mail. And it was true: no one had ever written to Heinz Schleiffer, at least not since Trude had been delivering the mail.
‘Wait,’ said Heinz. ‘What’s this?’ He held up a letter toward Trude.
‘Herr Karl Juncker, Tullemannstraße 54,’ she read the name on the envelope. ‘What about it?’
‘The return address,’ said Heinz, ‘and the postage stamp?’
Trude leaned in and looked more closely. ‘What about it?’ she said again.
‘American,’ said Heinz. ‘I’ll deliver this one in person.’
‘You can’t,’ said Trude.
‘I’ll deliver this one,’ said Heinz again. He handed her the other letters and stepped aside so Trude could unlock the panel and drop the other
